


A Spiders Christmas

by ahominecchii



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Christmas Presents, Even the Phantom Troupe celebrate christmas in their own twisted fucked up way, Family, Friendship, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2846093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahominecchii/pseuds/ahominecchii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas time in the Phantom Troupe and Nobunaga is having a hard time deciding what to get Chrollo as a present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spiders Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing says Christmas quite like thugs exchanging presents.

Through the dusty plains of Meteor City Nobunaga gasps for water with Machi by his side, this place, where they once frolicked as children, remains a wasteland unknown to the rest of the world; it holds a special place in their heart which is why it secretly hurts them to see it still so disgusting and deserted.

One day before Christmas Nobunaga wishes he didn’t leave his present gathering so late, he has missions to do and people to kill and yet here he was, trying to find something meaningful to present to his boss, he’d never understood the meaning of Christmas, as a born killer he didn’t see the point and when he joined the Phantom Troupe the point only seemed less relevant, Christmas was a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the lord and saviour of humanity, the son of god and the prince of heaven and yet heaven was the last place he was going; hence why he didn’t understand.

Nobunaga stops and sighed exaggeratedly as he looked over the horizon, the thick dust in the air making it nearly impossible to see what lies ahead of them, he finished his water on the journey here and he’d be lucky if Machi was willing to share her bottle, lucky indeed.

“Hey” he called out and sees his partner stop in her tracks to look back him with the same dead goldfish eyes she gives to everyone; he’d never seen Machi smile, her face was always expressionless like she’s completely done with the world and all that it holds and sometimes Nobunaga hopes to see those lips stretch into a grin, even if it’s a sadistic grin before she cuts the throat of another innocent bystander, anything to prove that she’s actually alive and her heart is still beating.

“What?” she replies and Nobunaga sighs again.

“Why the hell are we here? We could have just gotten him a book from a book store”

This time it’s Machi’s turn to sigh. “The boss has a ton of books; I thought you wanted to get him something meaningful?”

“I do! I mean…” Nobunaga doesn’t know what he means, he does want to get the boss something meaningful and somehow jewels and money just doesn’t cut it, they could get jewels anytime, they were thieves after all. At the time getting something from Meteor City seemed like a good idea but halfway through the journey he realised he was wrong and that his idea was stupid but it was too late to turn back now.

Machi turns around to continue walking, kicking her way through the countless rumble that lay at her feet but also searching for something that could be worthwhile, as Nobunaga’s assigned partner she has to follow him when he does things like this, when he travels far and wide across the country and she’s use to it but when the group were having their secret meeting and deciding who would travel with who she wished she’d spoke up, if she could change her partner she would have chosen to travel with Phinks, purely because he was less annoying and only spoke when he needed to but in the end it was choice between traveling with Nobunaga or Hisoka and Machi knows she’d rather die when be anywhere near Hisoka for long periods of time.

The air was quiet around them with only the sound of bones crunching under their shoes, that’s another thing that also hurts, having to walk over the bones of the people that use to live here, there’s too many to avoid stepping on, if they tried they’d end up playing hop-scotch across the plains so the only thing they can do is walk and silently apologise to the spirit of the person they’d just walked over. Nobunaga sees something that he thinks could be worth something and bends down to pick it up, it’s a sword of some sort, looks brand new like it previously belonged to a guard, the hilt is perfectly intact and despite the fact there’s some marks and scratched on the metal it’s nothing he can’t get fixed by a local swordsmith.

“What about this?” he asks with joy in his voice, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot with this one.

“Does the boss use a sword to fight?” Machi throws back a question without turning round and it catches Nobunaga off guard, he tuts and throws it behind him after he mentally answered the question and folds his arms.

“This sucks, I wanna go back to the base”

“You can go back if you want but it’ll only bring you shame when you look around and see the gifts the others bare”

Nobunaga growls under his breath, he doesn’t want to be here, the worst thing about Meteor City is the eerie atmosphere and weather, it’s constantly hot but humid, no cool breeze flowed through these parts to refresh their skin and there’d no one to greet them as they strolled through leisurely, all the people they’ve encountered looked like they were on their last legs, ready to hand their souls to the devil just to escape the misery that was their current life; if the people here weren’t ill in some way they were dying via starvation and dehydration.

Nobunaga notices Machi stop and bend down to pick something up, or to tie her shoe laces he’s too far away to know; his question was answered when he sees the woman hold something in front of her face as if to inspect its safety and it strikes him as curious, he jumps over to her and looks at the object closely; nearly gasping when he sees its beauty, a gold necklace with a peculiar gem hanging from the bottom, the gem was purple with hints of yellow shining from the centre, a truly beautiful find, Machi gathers the necklace in her hand and places it within her jacket pocket.

“I’ve found my present” she says monotonously and continues walking. It’s one of those moments where Nobunaga feels like ripping his hair out, he’d been searching for hours and yet he’s come across nothing worth bringing back, he has half a mind to give up and buy something on the way back home but he doesn’t want to be out done by Machi.

“God dammit” Nobunaga whispers to himself when Machi is out of hearing range, this was the reason he hated Christmas, he hated the fuss about it all but most of all he hated getting presents for people.

 

o0o

 

Three hours down the line and Nobunaga has had enough, the sun that once shone heat on his flesh was calling it a day and although he is in no way afraid of the dark everyone knew being in Meteor City during the night was a dangerous and stupid move. At some point Machi had started walking by his side but had no intension of having conversation with him, it almost made him wonder why she did.

“I can’t believe I’ve wasted the entire day” he says through a sigh and raised a hand to his head. “I had so much shit to do and I have nothing to show for it”

“It’s your own fault” Machi replies and Nobunaga looks down at her. “You weren’t looking harder enough, I’ve seen plenty of things you could have given to the boss, it’s like you’re not even trying”

“Huh?” Nobunaga yells down at the woman who’s now picking at the chipped nail on her index finger. “Why didn’t you tell me???”

“Why should I? I already said I’ve found my present, I have no obligation to help you on this search”

Despite the fact it’s a gang rule not to fight seriously among other members Nobunaga really wanted to fight Machi, he wanted to cut her into pieces and feed her to the vicious dogs that lived among the rumble, she knew he had been trying his hardest to find something, he knew she knew and yet she didn’t tell him anything, that, in his books, was called being a first class bitch.

“We should start heading back to the base” the woman said as she looked at her phone. “I don’t want to be around these parts at this time of night, we’ll just attract unwanted attention”

She could already the see the lurking eyes of the residents waiting for their chance to attack, it didn’t bother him so much but Machi wasn’t a person that liked to fight unless she had to, if she could avoid a situation like now she would, it saved a lot of trouble for everyone but Nobunaga didn’t want to leave yet, he still hadn’t found his present and didn’t want to return empty handed but with the sun setting fast it would probably be a good idea to leave whilst they can still see where they stand.

“Can I borrow your phone?” Nobunaga asks with his hand out, it takes Machi a few seconds to absorb what is being asked but when it hits her she clicks her teeth and hands it over.

“Who are you calling?” she asks and watches Nobunaga bring the phone to his ear.

“Feitan”

The device rings a few times before there is an answer and a husky hello echoes through the receiver.

“Feitan, its Nobunaga” he replies. “Did you get a present for the boss?”

“Yes” is the answer and Nobunaga sighs. “Me and Phinks found some excellent gifts, I hope you’ve found something good” the humour is all too obvious in his voice.

“What did you get?” it was a risk but Nobunaga decided to ask; only to receive a cackle from the other line.

“What did YOU get?” he throws back and Nobunaga makes a mental note to punch him when he returns home.

“Just answer my question!”

“So you can copy me? No deal” and with that the dial tone is heard on the other line. Nobunaga snaps Machi’s phone close and hands it back to her in silence.

“Let’s go home”

“What about your gift?”

Nobunaga sighs and adjust the swords that hang from his sarashi. “I’ll find a book store on the way back”

 

 

o0o

 

It was slightly embarrassing seeing how shitty his present was compare to the others, when he looked around the base all he saw was smirks and grins, some holding their presents wrapped like his sitting in their laps and others didn’t even bother due to the sheer size, Nobunaga could hear Shizuku’s demonic hoover Binky making noises from the corner of the room, smiling happily to its master as it glubbed to itself.

Nobunaga looked down at his lap and looked at the book in a black box, he felt pathetic, he could of tried harder but he didn’t, he took the easy way out and got something from a book store, something millions of other people probably own, he was a piece of shit.

“it doesn’t look like Hisoka has anything to give to the boss” Machi whispered to him and nodded towards the window, the pink haired man sat on the window ledge with a stack of cards in his hand and a wicked grin on his face, he was throwing them at the wall and watching the way each card gabbed through the stone holding the building together, if Hisoka didn’t have anything prepared then at least he wouldn’t have the crappiest present, the only thing worse than having a book for Christmas was having Hisoka himself.

Nobunaga didn’t have time to ask where the boss was before the man himself quietly walked to his usual sitting stone, there was something different about Chrollo as he walked over to his seat, like he had a pleasant joy in his step, maybe he was filled with holiday cheer, or maybe he had just returned from brutally ending someone's life, either way he looked happier.

“Hello everyone” Chrollo called out to the group and received mumbles in return, he seated himself on the slab of rock and reached into his jacket pocket to get his book and place it on his lap.

“Why is everyone so down today? Where’s your Christmas cheer?” Chrollo licked his thumb and flicked through his book until he found the page he’d bookmarked.

“Criminals like us don’t deserve holiday cheer” Feitan mumbled from under his collar and received a wack to his head by Shalnark.

“Just ignore Feitan he has no holiday spirit” Shalnark jumped up to where Chrollo was sitting and held out his present, it was wrapped in brown silk with a little bow on the front. “This is my present to you in this festival season”

Chrollo looked down at the box and back at Shalnark with a gentle smile. “Thank you very much Shalnark, you shouldn’t have”

The blonde scratched the back of his head with a laugh and jumped back down again to walk back to his seat; feeling the heated glares from the other members.

“What a kissass” Phinks whispered as he continued to polish his present.

Chrollo’s slender fingers pulled at the bow holding the wrapping together and allowed it to fall onto his feet, the smile on his lips hadn’t ceased in the slightest and the tiny gasp that escaped his mouth echoed through the building for all to hear.

“Oh how wonderful” he said and held up the object, a compact gold mini-revolver sat snug in Chrollo’s hand as he pointed it to the ceiling, the sun shining through the stain glass window dyed the gold a pallet of colours and Nobunaga had to swallow the lump of jealousy that subsided in his throat.

“This is absolutely beautiful Shalnark thank you very much” the blonde stuck his tongue out and smiled as the rest of the group grumbled at him, a gold gun? That was a sneaky move.

“A gun? Like the boss doesn’t have a couple dozen of those already” Feitan voiced and stood up, he pushed his way through the gang and jumped up to Chrollo’s seat. “I know you’ll like this"

“Another present?” Chrollo asked as he reached toward to receive his gift “you’re all so kind”

Just as he attempted to pull back the wrapping paper a set of teeth chomped through and Chrollo pulled back his hand as quickly as he could, as the present continued to eat it’s way free Chrollo saw that what was wrapped was something that resembled a Venus fly trap; but more vicious.

“Oh my” Chrollo said and bit his bottom lip; the creature looked up at him with a smile on its face and gurgled some incoherent words.

“It’s a Venus fly trap as you probably know-“ Feitan voiced up with a smirk. “But I found it on a mutated waste land, it’s pretty friendly but I wouldn’t put my finger too close to it because it eats everything”

Chrollo laughed as he placed his finger near the plants mouth and pulled it back again just when it was ready to bite. “Amazing, I think I’m going to name it… Midori”

Feitan hummed and jumped back to his seat. “Lame name” he whispered to Phinks and pulled his leg up to his chest.

“Thank you all for your lovely gifts” Chrollo and picked up his book again.

“Are we all done here? Oh that’s such a shame” Hisoka suddenly voiced up and everyone turned to look at him, the pink haired man jumped down from the windowsill and he put his hands in his pockets as he strolled over to the front.

“All of these presents have been lovely but unfortunately you’ve wasted your time” a pink flash of light flew over Pakunoda’s head and travelled over to the rumble of rocks at the back of the building, a scream was heard and then a crash before a man was dragged to the front.

“He put up quite a fight but it was a pathetic attempt” the bungee gum dragged the man to Hisoka’s feet and he jumped up to where Chrollo was seated.

“p-p-please… don’t kill me” Hisoka laughed and pushed the man to Chrollo’s feet. “He has a power that I thought you’d like to take, no need to thank me”

The magician jumped back to the windowsill and picked up his playing cards again, throwing a king of spades towards the wall.

Chrollo looked at Hisoka and then to the trembling man at his feet. “Franklin, please take this man into the back and see what his power is and if it can be of use to me”

The large man placed his hands on his knees and hoisted himself up. “Okay” he said and jumped onto a stray rock and them in front of Chrollo, he grabbed the man by his collar and dragged him away from the group; the pained cries of pleeing and harsh sobs echoing throughout the building.

“Thank you Hisoka” Chrollo said and saw the magician salute him.

“He’s probably just trying to butter him up they can fight at some point” Feitan whispered and Phinks nodded.

“Me and Nobunaga have some gifts we would like to give you” Nobunaga’s head snapped around to stare at his partner with wide eyes, didn’t she realise he was trying to keep quiet?

“Ohh?” Chrollo coo’d with a smile. “I’d like to see what they are if you’d allow me too” the pink haired girl stood from her seat and pulled on Nobunaga robe so he would stand too, he didn’t want to give the boss his present, he wanted more time, if he had another day he’d find a better present than the one he has now.

As the two of them strolled forward Nobunaga could only glare at the woman from the corner of his eye, he knew what she was doing, she was trying to embarrass him and it was working. _“This is so shit”_ he thought to himself as he too jumped up to where his boss was seated.

Machi was the first to step forward and place her hands out with her present in the middle of her palms. “I hope you like this” she said and stepped back once the gift had been taken from her hands. The wrapping paper Machi had used was lilac and had multi-coloured flowered spread across it, it was the only girly thing Nobunaga’s ever seen Machi possess, it made him wonder whether there was a secret hidden side to her that only she knew about.

“Oh it’s heavy” Chrollo said as he shook the box a little next to his ear, Nobunaga watched his hands get to work on the flimsy paper and felt his own hands getting clammy in to the process, it was his present next, his shitty present he didn’t want to give yet, he could feel his heart beating a mile a minute at the thought of his boss laughing at his pathetic gift.

 

“ _This is your gift to me? Wow I’m disappointed in you Nobunaga, I would of thought, of all people, you’d know what to get me… ah… how tragic"_

Nobunaga winced a little at the back of his throat and saw Machi gaze up at him; sweat escaped his pores and trickled down his temples as he waited for Chrollo to unfold the last of the paper and open the box.

“Oh Machi” Chrollo announced as he stared at the jewel in his hand, after Machi had found the jewel and returned back to the base she had spent the rest of her day polishing the object until she could see her face in it and more, a few times Hisoka tried to distract her but it didn’t work out well for him.

“This is beautiful, where did you get this?”

“I found it in Meteor City” the girl answered deadpan and watched her boss’s eyes widen.

“Meteor City? You found this? Well isn’t that extraordinary” Chrollo held the necklace up to the light with his index finger to examine it and then brought it back down again; unclasping the lock and bringing it to his neck.

The whole troupe watched him as he locked the necklace around his neck and fiddled with the gem. “What a beautiful find” he commented and bowed his head to the pink haired woman. “Thank you Machi” Machi nodded her head and took a step back so it was Nobunaga’s turn to be in the spotlight, his sweating hadn’t subsided in the slightest and if he listened closely he could hear the faint laugher of Feitan and Phinks from below.

“I take it you have something for me as well?” Chrollo said as he looked at Nobunaga, Machi gave him a little push forward and the man stumbled forward, and with shaky hands he represented his present to Chrollo and the other took it with a smirk.

“This one isn’t as heavy” the black haired male commented and got to work on unclasping the box the present sat in. It’s not normal for a member of the Phantom Troupe to be afraid, Nobunaga was pretty sure it was in the unwritten manual but right now he was afraid, afraid his present was gonna suck and it was going to upset and disrespect the boss all in one, he could feel everyone’s eyes burning unto his back, waiting for him to fuck up like he normally does, it was nerve-wrecking.

A audibly click was heard and Chrollo opened to the box slowly and when Nobunaga saw the smile that once sat on his face disappear he felt like he wanted to die via seppuku.

“Is this a book?” Nobunaga remained silent.

Chrollo lifted the book out of its casing and held it at arm’s length. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” he read aloud as he absorbed the cover.

“If you don’t like it I can-“Nobunaga started only to receive a hand in the air from his boss. The black haired man brought the book to his face and inhaled its scent with his eyes closed, he exhaled a second later but the book remained under his nose, Nobunaga, at this point, was a shitting himself, he was pretty sure Machi was shitting herself too.

“Where did you get this?” Chrollo asked without opening his eyes and incoherent words spilt from Nobunaga mouth as he tried to explain.

“i-I I- you see- me and Machi- well- I got it fr-“

“This is a first edition, right?”

Nobunaga stopped his gurgling and arm flaring and looked at his boss. "Y-Yes it is”

Chrollo stood from his seat and reached forward with his free hand to pull Nobunaga into a lopsided hug, everyone’s eyes locked on the pair as they exchanged the weird embrace, eyes flew out of sockets but no one was as shocked as Nobunaga himself.

“I’ve looked everywhere for this book but found it nowhere, I appreciate this very much Nobunaga thank you” Chrollo whispered against his shoulder and pulled back with a grin that caused his eyes his crinkle.

Nobunaga honestly didn’t know what to say to that, he could only nod once and step back to stand next to Machi.

“Thank you all for your presents I’m grateful” Chrollo said as he walked closer to the edge.  

“The fact that you all went out of your way to get me something on this festival day makes me very happy, I’m truly grateful for all I’ve received today”

A couple of laughs flowed through the room. “Unfortunately I have a little something to take care of, if anyone else comes baring gifts i'd appreciate it if you left them by my seat, I’ll look at them later” Chrollo turned to look at Nobunaga and winked before he turned back to the group.

“Pakunoda, Kortopi, if you could follow me” the two rose from their seats and jumped up to where Chrollo stood.

“If you’d all excuse me” he said and proceeded to walk into the darkness that was the back of the building; leaving the remaining gang members in the middle still in awe.

“Well” Uvo huffed out and raked a hand through his thick mane. “That was unexpected"

“What the fuck” Feitan's husky voice suddenly huffed out as stood up from his seat. “Does he have any idea how long it took to train that plant? When I first found it it was a killer and now it’s the perfect gift but he gets all hard over a book?” Feitan slumped down with a sigh. “This is shit”

No one was as confused as Nobunaga was, when he looked at Machi and the woman shrugged it only made him more confused, the boss should of hated his present, should of told him it sucked and he was out of the group and yet he hugged him, hugged him like he was a brother.

“What a nice ending” Hisoka piped up after a while and dropped down to the rest. “I could smell Nobunaga’s fear from the window”

“I think we all could”

The smile that crept up on Nobunaga's lips wasn’t intentional but it happened nonetheless, as he turned around to face his partner Machi just tched and turned to jump down so she could be with the others.

“Look at his shit eating grin” Shalnark laughed. “He’s so proud of himself”

“Hell yeah I’m proud of myself” Nobunaga yelled and jumped down himself. “You all went to the end of the earth to get your presents and I got him a book, a fricking book and hit the nail right on the head, jheeze I'm great”

“Shut up” Feitan spat out. "it's nothing to become mister big balls about"

“I didn’t even get to give my gift” a familiar happy gurgling rumbled from Shizuku’s hoover and then a sound that resembled regurgitating followed by the clang of metal.

“This was me and Binky’s gift” Shizuku said and patted her pet on its head. “We had to fight a lot of people for these but it was okay, as long as they handed over their gold it was fine… I had to kill a few though”

The pile of gold that covered the floor like a yellow carpet was truly a sight to see and Nobunaga was secretly glad Chrollo didn’t see Shizuku’s present before his.

“Man I’m hella bored” Phink stood from his rock and rolled his shoulder around. “I wanna go out or something or get into a fight… I might go on a search anyone wanna come?”

“I’ll tag along” Feitan commented as he too stood from his seat. “Anywhere’s better than the shit pile this place is”

“I’ll come too” Shizuku piped up. “I’m hungry

“If you’re getting food ill come too” Shalnark said happily, jumping up from his seat and pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I have something to do first but I can meet up with you guys later though”

“So everyone’s coming along?”

“I’m going to stay here” Hisoka said and heads turned to look at him. “I’m a little tried today; I don’t think my body can handle meaningless wandering through cities”

“Okay so that’s everyone apart from Hisoka?”

“We have a mission to do” Machi said and pushed Nobunaga towards the exit. “It may take a while but we’ll call you when we’re done.

“A mission on Christmas?”  Phinks asked and Machi nodded. “Our duties don’t stop because it’s Christmas, we’re still thieves after all"

They had to admit the woman had a point. “Okay then, anyone else?”

“Can I get beer if I join you guys” Uvo asked and Phinks sighed. “I’m not your mother, I don’t care what you do”

“Then count me in” the large man chuckled out and also stood.

In a blink of an eye the troupe dashed out of the building and into the falling night, leaving Nobunaga and Machi with a grinning Hisoka.

“We should move before night comes” Machi said looking up at her partner who was still grinning like a mad man.

“Please stop smiling also, it’s really creepy”

But Nobunaga couldn’t stop smiling, his face hurt from the action but he couldn’t, he was a great gift bringer, he didn’t know what he was so worried about.

“Yeah let’s go” he said after a while.

“Would you mind if I tagged along with you guys?” Hisoka’s gentle voice echoed throughout the building and Machi looked at him with dirtiest look she could muster up.

“Yes I would” she said and turned back towards the door. “Let’s go, Nobunaga” and both shot out the exit like bullets; leaving behind Hisoka to entertain himself by the window with the settling sun dying his clothing different colours.


End file.
